AROUND three years has passed since the cyber criminals looted US$101 million from Bangladesh Bank reserve, but the looted money is not yet recovered except some fruitless efforts by the Central Bank. In fact, the BB could not bring back a single penny from the Philippines in the last 18 months.
The Central Bank was able to return only $14.55 million from Manila in November 2016 since the unprecedented reserve heist on February 5, 2015. But after that, there has been no success in bringing back the remaining $66.45 million which made the experts suspicious about the reserve recovery efforts by a task force and frequent visits by BB and other government officials to Philippines.
The Central Bank’s heist was marked as one of the most organised financial crimes in the global financial history. Common people are still in dark how the crime was committed. A probe body led by former Central Bank governor Dr Farashuddin Ahmed was formed to probe the heist. But the report has yet not come to light despite Finance Minister’s repeated assurances. We think, the government exposed its serious weakness by not making the probe report public. It clearly indicates that a system is working to kill time and make the people forget the incident.
In March last year, an FBI officer in the Philippines, who was involved in the investigation, said the heist from the Bangladesh Central Bank’s account at the New York Federal Reserve was “state-sponsored”. The legal attache at the US Embassy in Phillipines did not elaborate but his comments in a speech in Manila were a strong signal that authorities in the United States were close to naming who carried out one of the world’s biggest cyber heists.
The digital heist by digital thieves has exposed our vulnerability to financial in security while the government campaigns for Digital Bangladesh. Our people deserve the right to know the probe reports – who were mastermind of the heist.
